And then I plunged into a scrape, together with my fellow members of the
press or "Scoop Club," as it was more popularly known, which halted my
work mid-way....
* * * * *
Our common adventure derived its inception from a casual remark of Jack
Travers', at one of our meetings....
Ever since Arthur Brisbane had come to Laurel, Jack had been on his
toes....
"Brisbane brought me a breath of what it must mean to be a big newspaper
man in the world outside," said Travers, as he stretched and yawned,
"why don't we," he continued, "_start_ something to show 'em we're
alive, and not dead like so many of the intellects on the Hill!"
"--s all right to talk about starting something ... that's easy to do.
The hell of it is, to stop it, after you've got it started,"
philosophised "The Colonel"....
"Just what is it that you propose starting?" asked practical, pop-eyed
Tom Jenkins.
"Oh, anything that will cause excitement!" waved Travers, serenely.
"If you boys really want some excitement ... and want to do some service
for the community at the same time,--I've got a scheme to suggest ...
something I've been thinking over for a long time," suggested Jerome
Miller, president of the club....
"Tell us what it is, Jerome!"
"The Bottoms ... you know how rotten it is down there ... nigger
whorehouses ... every other house a bootlegger's joint ... blind pigs
... blind tigers, for the students....
"We might show up the whole affair....
"--how the city administration thrives on the violation of the law from
that quarter ... how the present administration depends on crime and the
whiskey elements to keep it in power by their vote....
"_That_ would be starting something!"
"I should say it would!" shouted Jack Travers, ablaze with enthusiasm.
"Then we might extend operations," continued the masterful, incisive
Jerome, "and show up how all the drug stores are selling whiskey by the
gallon, for 'medicinal' purposes, abusing the privilege of the law."
"But how is all this to be done?"
"Through the _Laurelian_?"
"No ... I have a better plan than that ... we might be able to persuade
'Senator' Blair and old Sickert, joint editors of the _Laurel Globe_, to
let the Scoop Club run their paper for a day--just as a college stunt!"
"They'd never stand for it!" I averred, innocently.
"Of course they wouldn't--if we let them in on what we were up to!--for
they are staunch supporters of the present administration--but they
won't smell a rat till the edition is off the press ... and then it will
be too late to stop it!"
"In other words," laughed Travers, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke
from his nose, "they'll think they're turning over their paper, _The
Globe_, to a bunch of boys to have some harmless fun ... a few
sophomoric jokes on the professors, and so forth....
"And they'll wake up, to find we've slipped a real man-size sheet over
on them, for the first time in local history!"
"It'll raise hell's all I've got to say!" sagely commented the
prematurely bald "Colonel," his eyes glinting merrily.
"It'll be lots of fun," remarked Travers, characteristically, "and I'm
for it, lock, stock, and barrel."
"That's not the reason I'm for it; I'm for it for two reasons,"
reinforced Jerome Miller magisterially, "first, because it will put the
Scoop Club on the map as something more than a mere college boys'
organisation; secondly, because it will lead to civic betterment, if
only temporary--a shaking up where this old burg needs a shaking up ...
right at the court house and in the police station....
"But, make no mistake about it,--it's going to kick up a big dust!
"Also, remember, no one is going to stand by us ... even the Civic
Betterment League, headed by Professor Langworth--your friend,
Johnnie--will be angry with us--say our methods are too sensational.
"And the university authorities will say we shouldn't have done it
because it will give the school a black eye ... it will be Ibsen's
_Enemy of Society_ all over again!..."
Immediately some of our more conservative members set themselves against
the "clean up" ... but Jack Travers and I delivered eloquent, rousing
speeches. And the decision was more for full steam ahead.
* * * * *
"Senator" Blair was easily deluded, and persuaded to turn his paper over
to us, for one day.
Our strong-featured, energetic president, Jerome Miller, together with
the suave, plausible Travers, went to see him, deputation-wise, where he
sat, in the Laurel _Globe's_ editorial office,--white and
unhealthy-looking, a great, fat slug of a man, with the slug's nature,
which battens on the corruption of earth.
He liked the idea of the publicity his paper would get through the stunt
of the "boys." He did not guess the kind of publicity he would really
come into.
During the three weeks that we had before we were to bring out the paper
we grew quite proficient in the tawdry life lived in the "Bottoms."
We found out that most of the ramshackle "nigger" dives were owned by a
former judge ... from which he derived exorbitant rents.
We located all the places where booze was sold, and ascertained exactly
how much whiskey was disposed of in the town's drug stores for "snake
bite" and "stomach trouble." We discovered many interesting
things--that, for instance, "Old Aunt Jennie," who would allow her
patrons any vice, but demurred when they took the name of "De Lawd" in
vain--"Old Aunt Jennie" ran a "house" where the wilder and more
debauched among the students came (in justice to Laurel University, let
me add, very few) girls and boys together,--and stayed for the
night--when they were supposed to be on trips to Kansas City....
Travers and "The Colonel" and I were half-lit for two weeks....
That was the only way to collect the evidence.